27th Sunday Ordinary Time - Year C

“Increase Our Faith”. This is the request made by the disciples of Jesus as featured in today’s Gospel.  This is the request that must be made daily by all who would be Jesus’ disciples.  But, what is faith?  According to the American Heritage Dictionary, faith is (1) a confident belief in the truth, value or trustworthiness of a person, idea or thing; (2) belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence; (3) belief and trust in God; (4) a body of beliefs.  While these definitions do approach what we call faith, none clarifies the reality of faith as God’s gift.  For this clarity, believers are invited to turn, not to dictionaries, but to other believers.

For our Jewish ancestors, faith meant listening to God and obediently attending to the ways and will of God.  As the father of those who believe, Abraham continues to be held forth as a model of faith to emulate.  For the early Christians and authors, true Christian faith is a surrender to God in all things, at all times, all places.  “Faith is”, as Thomas Aquinas once said, “allowing God to work within us”.  In the book “And It was Good: Reflections on Beginning”, author Madelaine L’Engle insists that faith consists in the acceptance of doubts, in working through them, rather than in repressing them.

Soren Kierkegaard called faith a restless thing.  It is health, but stronger and violent than the most burning fever.  Faith expressly signifies the deep, strong, blessed restlessness that drives the believer so that he/she cannot settle down as rest in this world.  Those who settle down have ceased to be believers because a believer cannot sit still – a believer travel forward in faith. Habakkuk knew of the restless, burning fever of faith, as we see clearly in the 1st reading (Hab. 1:2-3, 2:2-4).  Aware that faith requires constant tending in order to grow and develop, the author of 2 Timothy (1:6-8, 13-14 2nd reading) calls upon Jesus’ disciples to stir the flame of faith as one would stir the embers of a fire in order to keep it burning and productive.

Lived faith or service is a natural expression of professed faith.  Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel (Lk. 17:5-10) challenges all who would be his disciples to live so as to keep that expression authentic and obvious.  Spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill (The Fruits of the Spirit, 1949) emphasized this necessary connection by defining faith as “consecration in overalls”.  It means making faith real in thought, word and deed.  This is the challenge Jesus holds out today and every day of our lives.